Succeed with maths – Part 1

If you feel that maths is a mystery that you want to unravel then this free course is for you. The course will guide you through how numbers are put together, give you confidence with using percentages, fractions and negative numbers and provide you with problem solving skills for your everyday life and the wider world.

Succeed with maths - Part 1 is a free course which lasts about 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours' study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another week's study. You can also take as long as you want to complete it.

Enrolling on the course will give you the opportunity to earn an Open University digital badge. Badges are not accredited by The Open University but they're a great way to demonstrate your interest in the subject and commitment to your career, and to provide evidence of continuing professional development.

By enrolling on this course you can track your progress in your My OpenLearn profile and earn a free Open University statement of participation on completion.

Learning outcomes

After completing this course you will be able to:

use maths in a variety of everyday situations

understand how to use percentages, fractions and negative numbers in some everyday situations

begin to develop different problem-solving skills

use a calculator effectively.

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations of the course. We welcome your feedback and suggestions to improve the experience for other learners.

Earn this free Open University digital badge if you complete this course! The badge can be displayed, shared and downloaded as a marker of your achievement.The badge is awarded for completing the course and passing the quizzes.

You can start this course right now without signing-up. Click on any of the course content sections below to start at any point in this course.
If you want to be able to track your progress, earn a free Statement of Participation, and access all course quizzes and activities, sign-up.

Course content

Succeed with maths – Part 1 is a free badged course which lasts 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours' study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another week’s study.You'll start with the most familiar territory of how numbers are put to...

In this first week you will be focusing on some introductory maths activities. Some of these problems may seem more like puzzles than mathematics, and others will clearly fall into the category of maths problems. To help you there will be hints for you to use, if you need them. All of these puzzles bring up points about how to engage in maths an...

In this week you will investigate the four basic operations used in maths, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, as well as the closely related idea of powers or exponents. When using all of these, it is important to know what order to carry these out in, just like you would when making a piece of flat pack furniture. If you start...

You first encountered fractions in Week 1, when you looked at how to show them on a number line and convert them to decimal numbers. This week you will continue your exploration of fractions and look at them in more detail. First, you’ll find out what a fraction is and then look at different types of fraction. Some of this may seem a little like...

This week you will continue to study fractions and will perform calculations with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. To do this, you’ll use what you learned in Week 3 about equivalent fractions, mixed numbers and improper fractions. Fractions can often cause anxiety. Our aim is that, by working through this session, y...

This week, you will start your study of percentages. This will continue in Week 6, when you will use percentages in a variety of different everyday situations. Whether you are shopping around for the best deal, or reading an article online, understanding percentages can be useful in your everyday life. Percentages follow on naturally from fracti...

This week, you will continue your study of percentages. After a refresh of some of last week’s ideas, you will turn your attention to carrying out calculations with percentages. This will help you to feel confident in using these in different situations, such as working out a reduction in price. Finally, you’ll spend a little time learning about...

For the final two weeks of this course you are going to look at numbers that are less than zero; that is, negative numbers. You will probably be familiar with these in relation to temperatures below zero, and in banking, when any debits are made. Here you will explore the use of negative numbers and how to work with them. As well as these everyd...

In this final week of the course you’ll complete your study of negative numbers by looking at multiplication and division, and using them effectively. You’ll finish the week by thinking about how to write and communicate maths clearly and correctly. This last section is important if you need to share your maths with other people. This could be w...

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Copyright information

Creative commons: The Open University is proud to release this free course under a Creative Commons licence.

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